Air Dates: March 31st to April 28, 2019 on MBS and TBS for a total of five episodes,
it was a lead in to the that was released on May 3rd.
Finally have gotten around to viewing this series and the first season was one of my top shows for 2018. That season had ten episodes while this one sadly just had five and think it mainly was a lead in for the movie. Will have all five recaps in a row and they shouldn't be too long as an episode is just 23 minutes long. Will also try having a different video at the top of every post, today's is a short scene from this episode. Like season one will list all of the characters with a pic and short bio of them, about ten from season one have returned and by the end of the second episode was introduced to four new characters. Will update the list as the episodes go on and of course the main star of this show is Minami though my fave character is Aoi's.
Minami Hamabe as Yumeko Jabami.... Was a new student in the first season and is totally addicted to gambling, she's on the hit list of the student council though they do respect her fearlessness.
Aoi Morikawa as Mary Saotome.... Now a friend of Yumeko's though that wasn't the case in the first season. Avid gambler whose only loss has been to Yumeko.
Mahiro Takasugi as Ryota Suzui.... Best friend of Yumeko's who dislikes gambling, is also a huge fan of the Idol Yumemi. Like Mary role is much smaller than season one.
Sayuri Matsumura as Yumemi Yumemite.... Student who returned to the school after beginning her career as an Idol and she's a popular one, member of the student council.
Taishi Nakagawa as Kaede Manyuda.... Student council's accountant who is determined to become the next president, role is much bigger than the first season.
Elaiza Ikeda as Kirari Momobami.... Student council president who we don't see too often, new to the series.
Yurika Nakamura as Sayaka Igarashi.... Assistant to the president, bit of a quite female who seems she's always about to explode though never does.
Natsume Mito as (L)Runa Yomozuki.... Student council member and a character who deserves a much bigger role.
Ruka Matsuda as Itsuki Sumeragi.... Former student council member who had to give up her position after losing to Yumeko, now is a part of her small group.
Miyuki Sawajo (voice) as the Vice President.... Hope the name is correct as she wasn't listed on any cast list, student council vice president who always wears a mask.
Yuki Someno as Saori.... Yumemi's manager and also a student.
The other students who don't have major roles, top person is new to this season. Bottom character will be explained a bit more in the fifth recap as through four shows she's had at the most twenty minutes of screen time but Mary seemed to join her group during the third episode.
Huge cast for a 23 minute show but of course most of the screen time belongs to Yumeko which is fine as she does deserve it. Bit of a background and then we'll dive into the recap, will leave this intro in all of the posts but may tweak things a bit here and there..... didn't change one thing!
The setting is the exclusive Hyakkaou Private Academy which has been in existence for 122 years. There only the elite of the elite students are in attendance as save for a few their fathers are extremely wealthy or are high ranking politicians. However the school is anything but an academic institution as the main activity there is.... Gambling! And not for small stakes as the wagers run into the tens of million yen. Your school ranking is determined by how much money you have plus whether you've won at your gambling showdowns.
Losers are considered 'house pets' aka dogs or kitties depending upon your gender. They need to do anything the winners or student council members demand of them, for now no student on the above class list is a house pet though three once had been in that category. In the first season there was a new student who is the show's star, Yumeko. She shook things up as she was able to defeat three student council members which had never happened in the school's history, her main goal is to face off in a duel with the student council president. That should make everything easier to understand and I won't have to discuss those details, let's get on with this final recap.
Once again will dive right into the action as I'm sure you've read the above post and know what the situation is. That's of Yumeko losing all of her money on the second hand of 'Choice Poker' but has asked her new friend Itsuki to donate some money to keep the game going. Itsuki was a bit nervous on that as she felt Yumeko would still have no chance of winning as Manyuda would always have more chips which was such a huge advantage in this game. But Itsuki backed down a bit and gave Yumeko 100 chips, they're now worth 10 million each so Itsuki's donation to Yumeko was one billion yen(!!!!) but would it be enough?
Itsuki still held such a vendetta against Manyuda for throwing her off the student council and will do whatever it takes to bring him down. On to the match and the rules are the same ones that were explained in the above recap, the Vice President is still the dealer. Round three commenced and once again Yumeko had a solid hand which she seemingly tore apart. She discarded two cards and when you do that you have to put them face up on the table, the cards Yumeko threw away were a pair of Queens! Manyuda is at a loss, is Yumeko using the same strategy as before where she's trying to get a bad hand or does she possibly still have a good one?
After both players receive a pair of new cards the betting goes through the roof. The raises go back and forth with most of them being ten chips or 100 million yen. But these raises could only go on for so long as Yumeko only started with 100 chips to Manyuda's total of 141 so once again it appears he'll have the final say and be able to choose who has the stronger or weaker hand. The raising seems to come to a close as Yumeko has out all of hundred in the post, Manyuda adds one more to his total which brings it to 101 chips and he now can claim the honor of calling the stronger or weaker hand.
The intensity level really picks up for the remainder of the episode but also at times the action does get a bit confusing, it's a show that really needs to be watched twice. Now that Yumeko is out of chips she asks her friend Itsuki to loan her more money, not just a little but whatever she has. Itsuki though is a bit tapped out and can't give the huge amount that Yumeko wants but may have a solution to give her even more than she requested. Itsuki asked the dealer if it would be acceptable to give to Yumeko her.... LIFE!? But not in the physical sense but whatever she's worth at the moment plus any future earnings, after some thought the Vice President agreed to the request.
She said Itsuki's 'life value' would be ten billion yen, her father still owned the largest toy company in Japan and factored in future earnings. With this huge amount of new cash it should be no problem for Yumeko to out raise Manyuda and to win the option of calling who has the stronger or weaker hand. But Manyuda wasn't going to allow this new influx of cash to happen as he told the dealer the council president was the only person who could allow rule changes during a game. But the president was away which left the VP in charge according to Yumeko but both her and Manyuda were in for a big shock.
That's of the masked person taking it off to reveal their true identity, as you can see in the above screenshots it was the council president Kirari!!!! She never did say why she was impersonating as the VP but has allowed Yumeko's stack of chips to increase by ten billion thanks to Itsuki. Kirari doesn't seem to have a high opinion of Manyuda and even though he's also on the council deep down felt Kirari wanted to see Manyuda suffer a huge loss.
Manyuda wasn't going to let that happen unless he too could get the same option as Itsuki. That the president agreed to and after figuring out his current worth and future earnings she also pegged his value at ten billion yen. So once again Manyuda has the edge in betting and to Itsuki her life is now over as there's no chance of winning this third hand but Yumeko was her cool self as usual and she couldn't wait for Manyuda to make his choice.
Final segment coming up and there was so much added to the pot it was hard keeping track of what the amount is, figured it was a little over 21 billion yen or $197 million! Manyuda has won the last raise which means he has the choice of declaring who has the stronger or weaker hand, after seeing Yumeko discard a pair of Queens he felt he had the hand wrapped up as he had three eights. So naturally Manyuda declared that she had the weaker hand and was in such a state of euphoria, that is until Yumeko quietly laid down her cards. As you can see above three Jacks was what Yumeko had so she had thrown away a full house, it was all part of her usual unbeatable strategy as once again Yumeko has taken down a student council member.
Manyuda went into such a frenzy and eventually had to be taken away in an ambulance. In the hallway Itsuki watched him being wheeled away and that's when we learned she had such a huge crush on him. Left in the gambling hall were the president Kirari and Yumeko where they had a very short conversation. Yumeko's goal since winning her first match in season one was to square off with the president and asked if she would join her in a battle of gambling. No words were spoken but both of their eyes began to glow so you know that match will happen in the movie.
That was the final scene to the season but before that there was one other mini scene. We hadn't seen Mary since the end of the third episode when she had been approached by a group of unknowns who weren't students. In this scene Mary was with these new people who are part of a cult, the leader is a man named Murasame while his assistant's name is Julie. The pair are trying to get her to join their cult but how it turns out is unknown as that scene was a lead in for the film which came out a week later, with that we've reached the end of this series.
All in all this was another enjoyable season but my grade will be less than the first. Forget what I gave that one but think it was around 9.2/10, that was one of my top shows for 2018. For this season will give it a grade of 8.5/10 but as mentioned it was an enjoyable watch. Gave it a lower rating as there were just five episodes and only two gambling matches took place, really wish it was just as long as the first season.
But the main reason for this series was to tie it in with the film that came out on May 3rd. Of course I haven't seen it yet the minute it comes out will be viewing it as I'm looking forward to it. Think I'll take a small break from Korean dramas, they are better but don't feel like viewing any long series as I've watched so many of them this year. Not positive but think up next will be the 2018 drama "Koe Girl" which I started but the subs weren't done past the fourth show. But now they're complete, it's a ten episode series but think the shows are only 25 minutes each so that just may be next.
No comments:
Post a Comment